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Nigerian Email Scams Hit Victorians

New research carried out by Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) indicates fake promises of tremendous wealth because of uninvited emails or spam mails. They keep on cheating innocent consumers to part with up to $120,000 despite repeated warnings by officials. The AIC displayed the results of a survey of 202 Victorians who sent cash to Nigeria.

Especially, elderly Australians are more likely to be susceptible to the online hackers. According to the survey, 40% victims belong to the age group of 55 years, even though people under this age group are less likely to be using internet.

Some were victimized by online dating scams and forged job offers but most of them were hit be "advance fee scams". Promises of heavy cash rewards from Nigerian princes and other fake identities if they transferred money upfront are lucrative.

The report stated that victims of advance-fee-stitch-ups were robbed off with $11, 500 on an average. Moreover, those who replied namelessly to the survey have sent nearly $100 and $120,000.

Nearly three-quarters of victims have sent money to overseas hackers on more than one occasion. Almost 40% sent money five or more times.

The hackers have also started using dating websites in order to extract money from the users. Sadly, the users respond to web-based data websites and lost their money.

People who use such dating sites must be very careful about the authenticity of such sites and should make sure that they are not fraudsters in disguise.

Further, 43% claimed that they suffer from emotional breakdown after being scammed and 12% stated that they face marital repercussions. Shockingly, 80% of the users nominated their savings as the source of their funds, while other mortgaged their homes or took personal loans.

However, the study revealed that the cyber crooks have employed altruism in manipulating people and taking advantage of their benevolence. It was easy to convince people, as most often people, especially elderly people normally finds it hard to turn down positive gesture of helping the needy.

Federal Justice Minister Brendan O'Connor stated that many victims feel embarrassed to report the fraud to the concerned officials, as per the news by bigpondnews.com on August 28, 2011.

He requested every Australians to think twice before giving or sending money to people whom they have not known.